more ordered before she arrived.
Charlotte hauled herself out of bed. The bedroom was freezing as she walked across it but as she caught sight of herself in the mirror, the reflection was not unfamiliar. She did not see a woman living a life she was not happy with. Instead, she saw herself staring back. She was dressed in faded lemon pyjamas, her hair was in need of a wash, but she was wearing a hundred-thousand-dollar necklace, and she could look into the mirror and smile. The hardest weeks of her life lay ahead, yet somehow she knew she could handle it and was at peace with the choices she had made.
She was bound to her mother, Roula had taught her that. Sitting talking to Roula, listening as she’d relived the mistake made long ago, hearing her pain, Charlotte had realised that she was bound to her mother for ever—only not out of duty, but love.
Still, the ringing of the doorbell made her grumble, sure that the nursing agency had messed up the times again. She pulled the door open and then promptly closed it, not in anger, just in shock, for there should surely be a warning alert on a cold winter morning when the man of your dreams comes knocking at your door.
‘Charlotte!’ He opened the letterbox, which was in line with her crotch, and she jumped to the side.
‘Can we talk?’
‘Now?’
‘Right now.’ She heard the need, the plea, felt the urgency, and she opened the door to a man only her heart recognised. She saw the unkempt suit, a jaw that needed a razor and eyes that were bloodshot, and she could smell brandy, but his soul shone bright and she could never not let him in.
‘It was not a job I was going to offer you …’
‘I know.’
‘And I was not going to ask you to be my mistress that night.’
‘I know that too.’
‘And would you still have said no?’
‘No,’ Charlotte admitted, for had she made it to dinner, had he offered her his world and an exclusive part in his life, hell, she’d have said yes in a heartbeat, but she was stronger than that now. ‘Though I’m sure I’d have lived to regret saying yes.’ It was such a hard thing to say. ‘I want the Zander I thought I knew, the one I first met. The one who could not wait to meet with his brother …’
‘I spoke to Nico. I went to see him yesterday.’ Charlotte opened her mouth to speak, knew just how big this was, but she forced herself to say nothing, to let him tell her in his own time. ‘He gave me your address, early this morning he texted it to me. I understand if you have little to say to me but I have to know, did I cost you your job?’
‘No.’ Immediately she shook her head. ‘No … I …’ She did not want to say it here, did not want to discuss such things in the hall. ‘Come through.’
She saw him blink in surprise as she led him not to the lounge but to her bedroom, for it was the only place in the house that was truly hers. She sat on the bed and he perched on the jumble of clothes that hid her chair and she said the hardest words.
‘I was going to put Mum in a home. I just couldn’t keep looking after her and I had to work and it would have been the right decision at the time. But when I got back I had some bad news about her health—Mum’s only got a few months left to live.’ She took a big breath because it was so hard to say it, but she forced herself, said it quickly, lightly, even though it masked so much hurt. ‘So I’ve bunged a bit of money on the mortgage and I’m taking a year off from my job.’
‘You could have sold the necklace.’ He smiled to see it around her neck, smiled that it was not locked up in a box but that she wore it with pyjamas. ‘I was trying to take care of you with that.’
‘I’d never sell it,’ Charlotte said. ‘No matter what it’s worth, it’s worth more than money to me.’
He looked at her face, at the dull eyes and the unwashed hair, and all he could see was Charlotte.
‘You could have rung,’ she said. ‘You should have given me some warning.’
‘I wanted to see you.’
‘Well, now you have,’ Charlotte said. ‘And I’m fine. I still have a job when I’m ready to go back. You can leave with your conscience clear.’
But he did not.
‘You must be exhausted,’ Zander said, as even with a racing heart she stifled a yawn.
‘A bit,’ she admitted. ‘But I just want to finish what I started. I couldn’t go on looking after Mum indefinitely, I can see that now, but …’ He said nothing, he just looked. ‘It isn’t indefinite any more and I want to focus on the time we have. I’ve got a nurse that comes in and we’re going on holiday next week.’ Charlotte rolled her eyes. ‘Don’t ask me how we’ll manage but I’ve booked a cottage by the beach and, freezing or not, we’re going to walk on the beach and feed the seagulls. Nico’s actually been wonderful …’ And she watched because this time his face did not darken, neither did he flinch at the mention of his brother, he just looked at her with eyes that were open to her questions now. ‘You went to see him?’
‘I went to see him to find out about you. When I spoke with his new PA I could not stand it that you had left, that Nico might have fired you …’
‘I can go back any time,’ Charlotte said, though she doubted she actually could, for it would kill her to see Nico and not Zander; it would be agony to be close to someone just a step away from the man she truly wanted. ‘You went to see him just for that?’
He paused and then shook his head. ‘No, I also went to find out about me, about him, about our mother.’
‘And did you?’
‘No.’ He had run from the truth, for very deep reasons, but he could not keep running any longer. The truth was waiting and he had somehow to move forward and greet it, and the only way he could do that was with her. ‘I would rather hear the truth from you,’ Zander said. ‘With you.’
‘She loved you,’ Charlotte said simply. ‘She still does.’ She watched as he pressed his fingers into his eyes, didn’t understand the shake of his head and his unwillingness to believe it, and she told him his story as had been relayed to her through his mother and the nun, but still he denied it, still he refused to believe. ‘She didn’t choose Nico. Zander, your father gave her no choice in anything. He completely controlled her. She did everything she could to go back for you.’
‘No.’ Still he was adamant; still he argued that black was white and Charlotte just did not understand. Why would he refuse the antidote to his pain.?
‘Why won’t you believe her, Zander? Why do you …?’ She closed her eyes in frustration, for still he would not be swayed, still he would not take the love that was all around him if only he reached out to it. ‘She’s sitting in a nursing home, clutching two plastic dolls, desperate to see her sons. It’s cruel that you …’ She halted herself for she did not want it to be so, did not want Constantine’s words to be true, did not want the father-son rule to apply. ‘Why can’t you just accept …?’
‘Because that’s not what I know.’ He did not shout it, but he might as well have. She felt the hairs rise on her neck, felt her body jolt
